


Bait

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Van Helsing (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during 'The London Assignment'. Gabriel finds the sight of Carl dressed in a frock rather intriguing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bait

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in _Horizontal Mosaic_ 7 (Blackfly Press).

The streets of this part of London are dark and foul: ripe with effluent, the cobbles are spattered with muck dragged from the gutter by hooves and cartwheels and by the hems of women's gowns. It is far from the elegant paved arcades of Piccadilly, and even further from the perfectly pristine alleyways and streets of Vatican City. These are the sort of streets that a killer can walk without noticing the stench and the filth; but Gabriel Van Helsing does not always consider himself to be a killer, and he has never been able to ignore poverty of any kind.

Van Helsing has passed through places sadder and more desperate than this, but he doubts that his companion has ever had cause to do likewise. Especially not while he was wearing a woman's dress.

Not that Carl seemed perturbed by his outfit. Indeed, when it was suggested that he might like to act as bait for their prey, he had changed with almost indecent haste from his pale grey Franciscan's robes into the deep chestnut-brown frock. He had fussed when Gabriel fumbled with the laces of the corset, and then squeaked when, annoyed, Gabriel had pulled too tight on the cords.

"You lack a certain delicacy, Van Helsing," Carl had said, sniffing.

"I'm more concerned about how delicate you look," Gabriel had replied. "Are you sure you haven't worn a dress before? Apart from your monkish robes, of course…"

Carl had given him a quelling glance. "I'm a friar. Not a monk. And we don't wear dresses. We wear robes."

"Ah," Van Helsing had said, "it's all the same thing, really."

"It is not!"

It is remarkably easy to tease Carl. Sometimes Van Helsing thinks it might be one of his duties, except that he enjoys it too much for it to ever become a duty.

Now they walk together through the filthy streets of the East End. Carl, in women's clothes, steps daintily along the pavement and tries to keep his hem and his shoes free of the filth. He walks through the pooled yellow glow of the gas lights, as fluttery as a social butterfly. The uncertain flicker ing of the lanterns make his hips seem to wriggle temptingly.

Van Helsing stays in the shadows, close to the walls. He tries to see the world through the eyes of their prey, Mr Hyde. This creature—malformed, huge, and violent—has been murdering the women of this part of London for months now. He is subject to a seek-and-capture warrant from the Vatican, although after witnessing firsthand what Mr Hyde is capable of, Van Helsing is rapidly coming to resent the 'capture' part of his orders.

The fog drifts in to fill the streets. It is as substantial as a living being, yet it parts to let him pass as if it were a diaphanous veil hiding from view the face of the most beautiful woman—or the ugly face of a beast.

Gabriel hurries his footsteps. He does not want to let Carl out of his sight until they've agreed on a plan. The fog is thicker towards the end of the street, where two roads form a junction beneath a gaslight. A great stinking wave, the fog rolls in from the Thames, bringing with it the stench of rotting fish and turpentine, damp wood and pitch. He pulls his neckerchief higher over his nose and mouth; a wasted exercise, since he has to tug it down again so that Carl will hear him.

"Wait," he begins, and through the fog it comes out sounding louder than he'd intended. It makes him feel like a john calling after a streetwalker, so he says it again, softer this time: "Carl, wait."

Carl pauses on the edge of the pavement underneath the lamp and gives Van Helsing a sidelong glance from beneath his pretty bonnet. Blond tendrils of hair escape and frame his rouged-and-powdered face most attractively. Gabriel admires him in a vague, proprietary manner. He's not sure if it's because he's pleased with the job he did on Carl's make-up, or if it's because Carl looks so alluring in drag.

"This will do," he says, indicating the streetlamp. "It's as good a place as any. And I'd rather you stood near a light, so I can see you in case you get into trouble."

Carl wrinkles his nose, apparently oblivious to the kind of danger in which he could find himself. "It smells here."

"It's called poverty," says Gabriel. "You don't see much of it in the Vatican."

"That's not true!" Carl sounds offended, and he glares up at Van Helsing. It's an expression that sits quite at odds with the pouted slick of lip-rouge that makes his mouth look so irresistible. "You know as well as I do that the Three Rules that govern all the religious, regardless of their Order, are those of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience—"

Gabriel snorts. "Since when have you been any of those things?"

"Well." Carl fiddles with the ribbon on his bonnet and then stops when he realises that it's beginning to fray. His mouth loses its determined line: "I subscribe to poverty. I have to. I don't own anything. In fact, the Vatican owns me."

Van Helsing leans against the lamppost, tips up the brim of his hat, and folds his arms. "I'll allow you that point. One out of three is still pretty feeble, Carl."

"I'm obedient!"

Gabriel raises his eyebrows, but says nothing.

"I am," Carl insists, wagging one gloved hand in emphasis. "For example: I told Cardinal Jinette that I'm not a field man, but, nevertheless, he told me to come with you. And here I am. Isn't that being obedient?"

"I suppose so. And anyway, I asked for you to come along."

"Because of my skill with inventions?"

Gabriel shrugs. "Because sometimes I get bored on my own and I want someone to talk to."

There is a bewildered pause. "Really?"

"Sometimes you're so naïve, Carl." Gabriel shoves himself away from the streetlight and wanders around it in a circle, peering up and down the gloom of the cobbled streets as if in search of hidden enemies.

Carl splutters. "Me? I'm not naïve. Well, in a certain sense of the word I suppose I am, but really, Van Helsing, I know an awful lot about—about an awful lot of things!"

"Yeah." Gabriel smiles as he returns to the lamppost. "You know all the theory, but you don't have the experience."

"But that's what you're here for," Carl says with impeccable logic. "I'm the brains, you're the brawn."

Van Helsing raises his eyebrows. "Do you talk to all the Order's field agents like that?"

"No. You're the exception to the rule." Carl's candour takes Gabriel's breath away. "Usually I don't talk to any of our field agents. It was only because you were blundering around in the abbey laboratories that I met you."

"And how much more fulfilling your life has become since then."

"Well…" Carl pauses, as if thinking of some witty rejoinder, and then he lets it go and shrugs instead.

"Don't do that," Van Helsing says, recalling his attention to the reason they're out on the street in the first place. "Ladies shrug in a much subtler way. Like this."

Carl tries to copy him. The edge of his dark red shawl slips off one shoulder. He smiles, coquettish. The shawl is tight around his elbows. It looks like soft, flat, bonds holding his arms to his sides. Gabriel swallows hard at the idea of restraint. It was bad enough that he had to lace Carl's pale, slender body into the corset. There is something forbidden and exciting about such transgression, even if it's done in the name of the Church. Or maybe, Gabriel thinks, that is what makes it so exciting: that this inversion is sanctioned by the Church; that anything they might do together while Carl wears the dress is forgivable and not a sin…

"That's enough." Van Helsing recalls his wits, hooking a finger into the thin wool and drawing the shawl back over Carl's arm to rest on his shoulder. "You've got to try to keep warm. It's a cold night. This fog…"

"I've heard it said that fog can turn a man's mind," Carl says, fussing with the ends of the shawl. "I've seen the fog rise from the Tiber in the winter, and the flurrying mists of autumn that gather in the corners of the plazas, but I've never seen the likes of this before."

"Then try not to wander off." Gabriel puts a warm hand on his back and gives him a push towards the lamppost. "Just stay beneath the light."

"Do you think he'll fall for this? Take the bait, I mean?" Carl sounds agitated.

"Of course. You make such a pretty girl."

The agitation becomes worry. "Van Helsing? Where are you going?"

Gabriel has already been swallowed up by the darkness and the fog. "I'll be watching. Don't worry about it."

"As if I would," Carl mutters, and then he sniffs and takes a step forwards to stake his claim beneath the streetlight. His shoes—delicate little things with a thin strap buttoned at the ankle—make loud clicking sounds as he walks back and forth.

The cobbles are wet from the fog, and he slips once or twice. Apart from his footsteps, the night is silent. Carl finds it odd that there's not a single other soul out on the streets. True, the weather is foul; but surely somebody should be abroad?

He wonders where Van Helsing is hiding. He cannot see beyond the circle of light from the lamp. It seems as if his whole world has come down to this: an area wide enough for him to twirl his skirts, a patch of yellow gaslight. Carl starts with tiny goads of anxiety whenever the fog drifts into the glow. It reminds him of an eclipse, and he tells himself that his reaction is purely primitive. He has no reason to be afraid.

Suddenly, he hears a noise. It is dulled by the night, distorted by the fog. He can't tell whether it comes from five streets or five yards away. Carl clutches his hands across his chest. He feels absurdly naked without the heavy wooden crucifix he usually wears there, and so instead he holds tight to the edges of his shawl. He turns his head this way and that, wishing that he could take off the bonnet so he could hear properly. But if he does so, then it will be obvious to anybody watching that he is not a woman, but a man.

The noise comes again. Carl listens carefully: was that a door slamming? Or was it the sound of a corpse falling to the ground? He waits for more clues. Inside his gloves, his palms are slippery. He can feel the constraint of the corset as he breathes. He tries not to think of the lanternslide images that the cardinal showed them before they left Rome, of the ghoulish faces of the victims, of the frenzied butchery per formed on the bodies…

"Damn it," he mutters, and then he calls out, tentatively, "Van Helsing?"

Gabriel is by his side almost immediately. "What is it?"

"Where did—Never mind." Carl frowns into the darkness. "I heard something."

Van Helsing tilts his head, listening for it: and there it is. A slight sound, funnelled through the fog. Footsteps—dragging, uncertain. Perhaps a drunk or a cripple, or perhaps it could be Mr Hyde. Gabriel slips a hand inside his coat to finger the gun that sits snug and warm at his side. Killing is always so cold, and yet his guns are always so hot in his hands.

He knows it would look more convincing to an outsider if he were to proposition the lady beneath the gaslight, so he leans closer and tries to pick up the thread of their previous conversation.

"What I said before, about wanting you with me for compan ionship—it's true, you know. I do get bored. This is lonely work, cursed work. There's not much chance for small talk," Van Helsing says, all the while listening for the footsteps that draw nearer with each heartbeat.

Carl seems confused. "But - you can talk to God."

"Ah." Gabriel is amused. "Trouble is, He doesn't talk back."

"He does," Carl says stubbornly, trying to look him in the eye. "You do… _pray_, don't you, Van Helsing?"

"I work for the Knights of the Holy Order. What do you think?"

"I think you're avoiding the question."

"You'd be right."

"God does talk to you," Carl states with certainty. "He talks to all of us who take the time to listen."

"And did God tell you to put on a lady's frock and hang around the streets of London?"

"No: you did." Carl's smile is beatific. "But you are an agent of God's will, and so…" His sentence tails off when he sees the gun emerge from Van Helsing's coat.

He looks up, his eyes wide. "Van Helsing?"

Gabriel takes his arm and manoeuvres him against the lamppost, whispering instructions: "Stand there. No, not so stiffly! Lean back: push your hips forward. You're a woman, remember?"

Carl flounders as he's shoved into position. But his instinct takes over and he sways back to rest against the lamppost. It's cold: the fog has chilled the painted ironwork so that moisture must be seeping through the cotton of his frock and staining his skin wet. It's no wonder that Carl shivers.

Van Helsing looks down at him. Standing directly beneath the gaslight, the bonnet casts Carl's face into shadow. All Gabriel can see is an inviting soft red pout and then, thrust out for his attention, an impressive pair of breasts above a narrow waist. Carl's shivering makes his breasts jiggle enticingly. Gabriel knows that they're not real, not flesh, but his body reacts even as his mind tries to dismiss the desire as an illusion.

The footsteps sound closer. Now Carl can hear them clearly; and he goes still, his body tense. Whoever it is, they're making no effort to conceal their approach. There's a distinct gait to the footsteps, a shuffle-drag across the cobbles. Carl imagines all sorts of things: a deformity, a fresh injury—or a murderer dragging a corpse…

Gabriel turns his back in the direction of the sound. He puts one arm around Carl's waist, pulling him into an awkward embrace, trying to make it look as natural as possible. At the same time, he slides the gun down, hiding its muzzle in the folds of Carl's skirt.

Between his legs, pressing against his thigh, Carl can feel something hard and insistent. He thinks it must be the gun, but he's not sure. He doesn't want to ask. Instead, he peeps around Gabriel's arm. His long leather coat smells of animal comfort, and he breathes it in, thankful for a new scent above the stink of the Thames.

The footsteps pause. A dark shape wavers through the shifting fog. Carl pushes closer to Van Helsing.

"Is it him?" Gabriel asks in a whisper.

"I don't…" Carl begins; but then the fog clears, and the footsteps resume, and a man—an ordinary man, drunk and weary, limping with a clubfoot—comes into view.

"It's not him," Carl says, relieved.

Gabriel lets him go, and for a moment Carl regrets the loss of contact.

"Hey." The drunk has seen them. "Hey, you there."

Carl ducks his head, wary of being recognised as a man in woman's clothing. Beside him, Van Helsing turns casually to regard the drunk. "Can I help you?"

"It's a cold night," the drunk comments, coming closer. His face is red, seamed with bitterness, and his nose is bruised with alcohol. His lip is split, and when he speaks, he drools with out seeming to notice it. "Cold night," he says again. "Decent folk shouldn't be out, sir. Know a good place, I do. Somewhere safe for you and your… lady-friend."

Van Helsing smiles. "Thank you, but I am perfectly capable of finding my own accommodation."

The drunk seems not to hear him, but instead lurches for wards to grab at Carl's wrist, making to pull him into the light so as to see his face. Carl affects a little cry of surprise and shrinks back.

"Where'd you find this one?" the drunk demands. "She's not from these parts. No local girl will work Whitechapel on her own these days."

Gabriel frowns at the man. "Why not?"

The drunk looks startled. "Why not? Because of the Mon ster. The one that kills 'em and drains the life out of 'em. Slits their throats and coats the pavements in gore, and then he's gone—off and away, before the Peelers can get anywhere near him."

He sniffs, taps a finger against the side of his nose. "Some say that he fucks 'em first. Just to get their blood singing, if you catch my meaning, sir. Makes it sweeter, or so they say."

Behind Gabriel, Carl gives a gasp of shock.

The drunk hears. "Aye, missy. You run back to your usual patch, Bethnal or Southwark or wherever it is you came from, and don't go trying to steal our girls' livelihood. Not when so many of 'em are dying for it." He laughs, a hoarse coughing sound. "Dying for a shag. Funny, ain't it?"

"No," says Gabriel, quietly. "No, it's not."

"Well," says the drunk, suddenly reeling upright, "will you not think on my offer, sir? I know a nice place. Warm and safe, like I says. You don't want to be fucking out on the street, sir. Not that the Peelers will bother you on a night like this, but with the Monster at large… Who knows? Maybe he'll get a taste for gentlemen as well as for whores."

Carl turns away, hanging his head. He feels hot with shame. Not only has he been mistaken for a woman, he's been labelled as a whore. Although he knows that that was what he was supposed to be, it had seemed to be a game, an act—but not any longer. He draws his shawl close and hugs into himself, shivering with cold and humiliation.

"I'll take my chances." Gabriel puts a hand on Carl's shoul der. It's a casual gesture, but it feels possessive. He flicks aside his coat to reveal the gleam of light along the barrel of the gun.

The drunk takes the hint well enough and stares blear-eyed at the two of them for a long moment. "If you're sure," he says. "But next time, sir, don't go wasting your time freezing your arse off on street-corners. _The Blue Boar_ has some lovely girls. Pretty and clean. Keeps 'em safe, we do. Keeps 'em off the streets and away from the Monster. You remem ber that for next time. _The Blue Boar._"

"Thank you." Van Helsing smiles politely, and keeps on smiling until the drunk disappears into the night. Only then does he holster the gun and turn to Carl, letting his hand slide down the sleeve of the dress to the elbow.

Carl knows that Gabriel can feel his renewed shivers but is pretending that he hasn't, saying instead: "Well, at least we know that we're in the right neighbourhood."

"You already knew that." Carl won't look at him.

"Carl." Gabriel is gentle suddenly. He strokes the sleeve and feels, beneath the fabric, the tremble of flesh. "Were you afraid?"

"Yes, damn it!" Carl shakes him off and raises his hands, adjusting his bonnet needlessly. "I told you—I'm not a field man. I'm not trained as one. I don't want to be one. And most of all, I don't want to be murdered by some deranged lunatic thinking I'm a piece of muslin!"

Gabriel laughs. "That's a very archaic turn of phrase."

"It's not funny."

"Trust me."

Van Helsing looks down at Carl, at the incongruous sight of the heaving breasts, and again he feels the flicker of a most inappropriate desire. Distracted, he continues, saying: "I know what I'm doing."

"What will you do? When you capture him, I mean."

Van Helsing hesitates for only a moment before he replies. "I'll kill him."

Carl looks up at last, concern drawing his brows together into a frown. "Oh, really, Van Helsing, you mustn't. Cardinal Jinette was annoyed enough that you killed that hellhound from Swabia without even attempting to trap it. If you don't at least try to bring Mr Hyde in, then… Well. He'll be angry."

"To Hell with him." Gabriel abruptly lets go of Carl and walks away to the edge of the lamplight.

"Why are you so disrespectful?"

"Because I don't think that this monster deserves to be saved."

Carl is perturbed. "But the cardinal—he said that all souls, no matter how dark they seem, have the potential to be saved."

"I've seen what Mr Hyde does to these women," Gabriel snaps. "Believe me, Carl, he has no soul. He's driven by blight, by need…"

Carl comes forward and puts his hand on Van Helsing's arm. "Are not all men driven by need?"

"Some more than others," Van Helsing admits, staring again at the shape of Carl's breasts beneath the dress, at his waist, his hips. Struggling with temptation, he says, "Jinette only wants Hyde because of his raw power. He probably thinks it can be harnessed in some way."

"I wish you wouldn't be so cynical."

"And like I said: I wish you wouldn't be so naïve." Gabriel comes closer to Carl. "If Mr Hyde were preying on society ladies, or on well-behaved, respectable women, then Jinette wouldn't have had a second thought about ordering me to kill him. But he hasn't, and you know why? Because Mr Hyde only kills prostitutes, and we all know what the Church thinks about whores."

Carl tries to protest: "They do tempt men into sin."

"Is that what you're doing?"

There is a fraught silence, and then Carl whispers, "Am I… I mean, do I tempt you?"

Gabriel growls. "Yes. Damn it."

"Oh," says Carl: faintly, pleasantly, surprised.

Van Helsing strips off his gloves and stuffs them into his pockets. He touches Carl's cheek, feeling the brush of the rouge against his fingertips. It feels unnatural, and he longs to touch real, unpainted skin.

"There's one of your three Rules we didn't discuss yet," Gabriel murmurs.

"Chastity," Carl says, swallowing nervously. "Of course I'm chaste. Only… Well. I'm a friar, not a monk, and that means…"

"That means what?" Gabriel asks, coaxing, his fingers mov ing down the curve of Carl's cheek to touch his lips. His fingers come away sticky with lip-rouge. He wants to wipe Carl's mouth clean of the stuff, so he can taste him.

Carl is trembling, but not from the cold. He looks very flirtatious when he says, "Being a friar gives one more freedom."

"Freedom?"

"To experiment."

Gabriel laughs. "You know, some men would pay a lot of money to have an innocent play-acting the whore for them," he says. "I don't have a lot of money, but you can have this, instead." He produces a golden sovereign and holds it up, letting the gaslight shoot lazy glitter from its edges. "Cardi nal Jinette gave me a bag of them for expenses."

Carl stares at the coin and then lifts his gaze to Van Hel sing's face. He looks so anxious, so excited, that Gabriel seizes his wrist and hurries him out of the light, into the darkness. They plunge through the fog, cold breath mixing with the deadened stench, and then Gabriel pauses, pulling Carl up short.

"There," he says, and shoves him towards a narrow alley way. It's as black as the mouth of Hell, but once they're off the street and standing against the wall, it's lighter than he first thought. There's a row of windows high above them in the wall opposite. They're shuttered, but a faint glow escapes to tint the fog and to illuminate the proceedings below.

Carl starts to speak.

Gabriel silences him by laying a finger across his lips. For all that he told Carl that he'd wanted him on this assignment for his conversation, this is not a time for words. For sound, yes—the hasty, reckless sounds of lust—but not for words.

Van Helsing puts his hands on Carl's breasts. He knows they're not real, that they're layers of padded cloth tucked into the top of the corset to give Carl a shape that society women would kill for—but desire can always bolster illusion. Besides, Gabriel can't remember the last time he had his hands on a woman's breasts, naked or clothed. Five years, twenty-five, two hundred and five…? Without the benefit of his memory, Gabriel is lost to past pleasures and can only seek them in the heady, dangerous time of now.

Carl whimpers when Van Helsing touches him. It's not flesh that he's fondling, but strangely, Carl can imagine what it would feel like if he really were a woman. It makes him ache, both between his legs and across his chest. His nipples harden and rub against the corset. He finds it difficult to breathe, suddenly. He wonders irrationally if Gabriel would prefer it if he were a woman.

Van Helsing kisses him. His tongue traces over Carl's lips, wetting the rouge, and then he leans closer and kisses him properly. He sucks at his lower lip, and Carl is aware of the waxy, alien taste of the lip-rouge. Carl moves, changes the angle of the kiss, and feels Gabriel biting at him: desperate, passionate.

Carl tilts back his head and hears the scrape of the bonnet against the brickwork. It sounds loud to his ears, and he flinches from it, pushing closer to Gabriel. The movement dislodges the bonnet, and it slips slightly from his head. The ribbon tied beneath his chin pulls across his throat like a choker: a splash of deep red on pale skin.

Gabriel lifts Carl's skirts, bunching them up in his hand. He unbuttons his trousers, pushing aside the holstered gun so that it won't come between their bodies to remind them of their duty. Beneath the frock lies a petticoat, and even in the shadowy light of the alleyway, Gabriel can surely see Carl's erection pushing at the thin cotton. The friction of the fabric between them might have been exciting, but he wants to feel skin - real flesh, not baited illusion. Apparently, Van Helsing agrees.

The petticoat rips from hem to waist. Carl gasps at this pantomime of violence and writhes back against the wall. Gabriel's hands are hot on him, a startling contrast to the night air. He feels exposed and vulnerable, but somehow it is liberating.

He wants to talk, to commentate on his own desire, but Van Helsing hushes him back into muffled silence. Still he cries out when Gabriel strokes his cock—a single, hard gesture that stabs him inwardly and makes his belly lurch. Is this fucking? He doesn't know; he's not sure. He's done this to himself so many times, even though the cardinal said it was a sin. It feels like sin, now, but he is helpless to stop it.

Gabriel lifts him up and positions him, whispering instruc tions just as he did before, under the lamplight. Carl presses back against the wall. He can feel the indentations of the brickwork through his dress. Distantly, he realises that Van Helsing is strong—he can feel the power of the corded muscles of his arms and thighs as he wraps one leg around Gabriel's waist. It is reassuring and exciting. He has never been held like this before, and it seems unreal.

And then Carl feels Gabriel's cock, hot and hard between his thighs. Not in his behind —that would be too much, even for the whore that he's pretending to be—but thrusting, chafing at the tender skin of his thighs. The motion slams him back into the wall and forces the breath from his body. _This_ is fucking.

His erection is tight. The head of his cock pushes into the soft folds of his bunched-up skirt and catches the lower edge of the corset. It maddens him, and Carl struggles.

Gabriel seems to understand his urgency. He braces himself, pushing harder against the wall to take more of Carl's weight, and then he reaches down with one hand and begins to jerk him off.

Carl mewls, turning his head from side to side, abandoned to pleasure. The ribbon of his bonnet pulls tighter. It cuts into his throat—not enough to frighten him out of arousal, but enough to make his head spin with the feel of it. It's dangerous, makes his blood sing; reminds him of his vulnerability. He feels almost sick with desire, gasping at Gabriel's possession of his body.

He comes with the taste of lip-rouge in his mouth and the heavy scent of damp leather filling his nose.

Gabriel lowers him to the ground and lets drop Carl's skirts. They stand, breathing hard, while the fog shifts idly above them.

Carl puts a hand to his forehead. His hair is bedraggled, stuck to his skin with sweat. His scalp itches beneath the bonnet, but all he can do is to straighten it on his head, trying to untangle the ribbons.

"Let me do that." Van Helsing picks at the knot. It is too tight, and he fumbles with the ribbon in the darkness. "You'll have to cut it," he says.

"Yes," says Carl. "Yes, I will."

They straighten their clothes, their movements brisk and workmanlike as the pleasure fades and duty reasserts itself. They emerge from the alleyway back onto the street, and they walk together to the lamppost. There is the oddest sense of déjà vu as they come to a halt beneath the yellow gaslight.

"How do I look?" Carl asks.

"Like you've just been fucked," Gabriel says with a smile. He searches his pockets and tosses the gold coin into the air, and then tucks it down the front of Carl's dress. "You know what? You look like a whore."

Carl lowers his gaze, once more the coquette. "Then perhaps this time Mr Hyde will find the bait to his taste."

"I hope so," Gabriel says, utterly serious, all trace of playfulness gone from his expression. "Stay here, beneath the light. Don't wander off. I'll be watching."

When he lifts his head again, Van Helsing has gone. Carl clutches the shawl to his chest and feels, between his breasts, the shape of the sovereign.


End file.
